


Dexter by Daylight

by unrequitedangst



Category: Dexter Series - All Media Types, Dexter Series - Jeff Lindsay
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrequitedangst/pseuds/unrequitedangst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We will enjoy ourselves as a family--as though love is something we are capable of--and I will do my Dexter Daddy best to follow in Harry's footsteps.  Dexter and his Dark Passenger spend a Sunday with Cody, Astor and Brian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dexter by Daylight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fictionalfaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalfaerie/gifts).



> This story is set after and contains spoilers for the fifth book ( _Dexter is Delicious_ ). Nothing is explicit, but there are brief references to sexual abuse and harassment, as well as violence against people and animals. If you haven't read the books, the book and TV show canons significantly diverge.

The sun is barely peeping over the horizon when I open my eyes to the newborn day, the grey sky streaked silver and rose with dawn, the morning air redolent with dew and diesel fumes and the sound of loud curses.

"-- _mother **fuck** er_," screams my next door neighbor, " _you fucking piece of fucking **shit** , I ought to--_"

 _Clank-clank-THUNK_ , the lawnmower wittily ripostes.

I like to think of myself as a rational being, but even I have my moments of weakness. If Rita were sleeping beside me now, dreaming the rest of the innocent, perhaps I would get up to close the window before returning to my own not-so-innocent slumber. Perhaps later I would have a good, long talk with Mr. Joseph Gutierrez about the appropriate hours for improving one's lawn, the appropriate language to improve one's lawn by, and the appropriate volume the preceding should be conducted at. Perhaps this _appropriate_ iteration of Dexter might even ask if there is anything he can do to help.

But Rita and Lily Anne are not here in Miami now. They have left me Dexter desolate, a man bereft, to visit Rita's sister for the weekend.

As far as I know, Joseph Carlos Gutierrez has not committed the sort of sins that require squaring away, but of course every man has skeletons in his closet. And I am excellent at digging secrets from their graves, both figurative and literal.

There is an elegant symmetry in the idea of hacking the man to pieces with his own poorly maintained instruments of horticulture. I allow myself to contemplate the thought, as my Dark Passenger hums happily in agreement. How simple it would be, to come up behind him with a hoe, to gut him with a hedge clipper, to leave him shredded in his own mulch. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust and waste with waste, the great circle of life in action.

And my teachers in school said I had no gift for poetry.

Poetry or no, the pleasure of planned murder is a fleeting one. I must return to my usual state as Dexter the dutiful after a few all-too-short moments. Just like the Billups' Buddy and poor Nicky's dear sweet departed Rascal, Gutierrez is too close to home to make good prey. I am a family man now, after all. Just what would Harry _think_? The electric chair is not a luxury I can afford, not when there are college tuitions to be saved for Lily Anne and Cody and Astor.

The sun is trudging wearily higher in the sky by the second, and soon Cody and Astor will be awake.

I get up from my bed and close the window, ignoring my Passenger's piqued cough. I begin dressing myself.

When I was younger and had no roommates other than my Dark Passenger and box of neat glass slides, solitude was something I took as a matter of course. It was easy to spend late nights poring over police dossiers, to dally with the prey _du jour_ by moonlight, to clean up before dawn and be home in time to shower before heading over to the Miami-Dade police forensics lab with a cheerful smile on my face.

But now I am daddy Dexter with responsibilities: a career ladder to climb, a mortgage to pay, three children and a wife and a Dark Passenger to feed. The silence in the house feels alien. I feel empty-- _emptier_ \--without an immediate task at hand to rush toward: a daycare pickup, dirty diapers, a backed-up toilet. Having time to linger over the newspaper, as I crack eggs into a pan and throw sausage patties on the griddle, seems an impossible luxury.

It's unlikely there is anything in the papers I haven't already seen, but one never knows. Just like a parent, a forensic crime scene analyst must be vigilant at all times. On page 8C, I find that a Louisiana senator is suspected of involvement in a New Orleans call-girl madam's strangulation. Yesterday, a ten year old boy vanished from a Tampa mall, the suspected victim of custodial kidnapping. A recent upswing in heroin-related teenager deaths leads investigators to believe that tainted product is being distributed. Miley is dancing on poles again, much to Billy Ray's despair.

Truly, ours is a depraved world.

I am nursing my third egg and an article on the correlation between cellular phones and testicular cancer when I finally hear Astor and Cody's footsteps on the stairs.

"Good morning, children," I say as heartily as I can to compensate for the present lack of maternal cheer. "Did you sleep well? Would you care for some Sunday breakfast? A bit of witty repartee, perhaps?"

"Weird," Cody says in his soft monotone, which I take as a 'no' on all fronts. Astor just rolls her eyes.

I begin frying additional eggs for them anyway, because I am nothing if not magnanimous.

As the food crackles in the pan, I contemplate the day that lies ahead. I have been worried, of late, that I have been giving Lily Anne the lion's share of Dexter's attention. Astor and Cody's Dark Passengers have become increasingly willing to rattle the cage bars, and I, well.

Lost in work and diaper changing duties, I have not done my part to dissuade my childrens' dark impulses, nor to help them do things cleanly, right, precise--to square things neatly away like a good father should.

But today! Today the Miami-Dade police department has a substantial case backlog, just as they always do, but nothing critical. Today is a chance to catch up on my parenting backlog. There is no Ice Truck Killer or Dr. Danco or Moloch waiting just offstage for Dexter to investigate on his day off, only everyday rapists and murderers. The children and I can bond over games of Hangman or Operation. I can guide them, answer their questions, teach them the things they will need to know to be happy, harmless members of society. They will look up to me. We will enjoy ourselves as a family--as though love is something we are capable of--and I will do my Dexter Daddy best to follow in Harry's footsteps.

I plate the food when it is ready, even going so far as to sprinkle a few springs of parsley to add what Rita would describe as that certain jenny says wha.

"Breakfast is served," I say benevolently as I set the plates before the children, an upwelling warmth of fatherhood washing through me, "bon appetit!"

"I'm a vegetarian," Astor says. "This is _meat_."

"But you ate three slices of pepperoni pizza on Thursday night," I say dumbly.

"I _know_ that, Dexter," Astor says. "It's new. I started yesterday."

"But you--" I start, unthinking, before I realize that _\--and your baby brother had no qualms about the Villegas' cat or darling Nicky's Rascal, now did you?_ is perhaps not the best way to finish that sentence. "Vegetarians can eat eggs. They aren't considered meat."

"They are so," Astor says. "Chickens are meat and eggs grow up to be chickens."

"Well, actually, the chicken eggs we buy at the grocery store aren't fertilized so they can't grow up," I say. "If we didn't eat them, they would never become anything except rotten."

"Gross," Cody says, staring down at his plate, and I cannot tell if this is a comment on the egg farming industry or my culinary skills.

I am in the process of being deeply wounded at my children's disloyalty when the doorbell rings.

Surely this must be Deborah! I think. Or possibly Jehovah's Witnesses. Who else would be so crude--so _crass_ \--to show up uninvited at the Morgan house at this hour on a Sunday?

When I open the door, my brother Brian is standing outside with two large paper bags in his arms.

"Dear _brother_ ," Brian says, with a bright, fake smile that is all teeth. "Dear, dear Dexter."

"What are you doing here, Brian?" I ask. "Today isn't Friday."

Though our weekly family dinners in past weeks have been uneventful and sometimes even enjoyable, Brian is a creature of routine just as I am, and we avoid each other outside that four hour window each Friday. We predators like our rituals. They make it easier to blend into a crowd. And in truth, I do not think the question so unreasonable, given the circumstances of our last unplanned parting, and the one before that, and indeed, the one before the one before the one before the one before that, in which Brian had asked me to slice and dice Deborah to pieces.

"Why so serious, dear brother?" Brian says. "Turn that frown upside down. Don't you know family is everything? I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Death, cannibals, out-of-state spousal trips--family helps each other out in times of need."

"Today isn't family night Friday," I repeat, my Dark Passenger bristling warily, "and my back doesn't itch."

"Family isn't just one day a week, brother," Brian says. "I thought you could use some help anyway."

For a fraction of a second, his terrible smile falters and I get the feeling that he is as sincere as he is capable of being. That my brother does, indeed, care about me to some small degree beyond the concerns of whether I am arrested by the police or consumed by cannibals. I am almost touched by the sentiment. It is not an easy task, after all, for beings like us to form attachments to others. The fact that he would even attempt it is not insignificant.

Then the smile is back full-force, brighter and falser than before, and the moment is gone.

"I brought IHOP," Brian says, nodding downward at the bags in his arms. "Also, movies."

"Movies?" I say.

"Don't worry," he says. "They're educational, brother. None of these vampires or werewolves, just good, clean fun for the whole family. I thought we could catch up on three decades worth of movie nights. You and me and your little foundlings."

And what is there to say to that, really? I know when I am being steamrollered. I step back from the door and let my brother within bearing gifts.

It is never more apparent to me than in Brian's presence just how fickle children are. Although the food I slaved over earns nothing but disdain, Brian's IHOP pancake offering elicits a shriek of delight from Astor and a tiny, sideways smile from Cody. Syrup! Butter pats! Jam! Infinite delight in tiny containers. A small, irritated part of me considers pointing out that pancakes are made with eggs, and thus strictly are not vegetarian either, but that would be immature of Dexter, family man. I fill my mouth with pancake instead.

"Dear _children_ ," Brian says when all the food is gone. "It is so wonderful to see you."

"Why do you always call us 'dear'?" Astor asks, and I abruptly reevaluate my previous estimation of her fickleness. The sudden caloric influx appears to be doing wonders for her ability to reason. "You aren't related to us."

"No, dear child," Brian says. "But I am related to Dexter, and you are Dexter's family now."

"Are you taking us somewhere today?" she asks. "Dexter always says he will, but he never does."

"I take you lots of places," I say. "Just yesterday I took you and Cody to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk."

"Not interesting," Cody says, staring fixedly at Brian as though my brother will conjure up a stray animal in the midst of the living room to go with the Wii and Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire.

"No trips today, I'm afraid," Brian says smoothly. Since the only two members of our household with a soul to speak of are currently hundreds of miles away, there is no reason for Brian to maintain his awful farce of a smile--nobody here but us killers, killers in training, and Dark Passengers!--but he still keeps it pasted on his face. "I heard it was just going to be you and your father for the weekend, so I decided to drop by and help out. I brought some educational films I thought the two of you might enjoy, and perhaps your dear father Dexter and I might get a chance to talk."

"About killing people?" Astor asks.

It is petty, but no less gratifying to see Brian struck dumb by Astor's unerring ability to ask uncomfortable questions. His mouth opens and closes and then opens again before he manages to say, "No, about family."

 _Same thing_ , my Dark Passenger whispers, amused.

"Boring," Cody says, and looks at his sister.

"That's all you ever want to talk about," Astor clarifies.

"Well, it's a very important topic," Brian says, clearly nonplussed.

"I thought you said you and Dexter didn't have a family," Astor says. "So what is there to talk about?"

It's true. Brian and I have nothing to talk about. We are more linked by the existence of our mother's blood than by anything in that blood, but perhaps the magic of IHOP is affecting me as well. I find myself surprised by how quickly I blurt, "We're making up for lost time."

"So we are," Brian says, without missing a beat. Then: "The movies are on the kitchen counter, brother. I bought a brand new Blu-Ray player too, since it would be a great pity if these delightful children were to miss out on any details."

Brian has indeed brought educational movies for the children to watch, although I am not sure if Rita or the children's school teachers would concur. Much to Cody and Astor's disappointment, I refuse to let them watch the Human Centipede in high definition, but they seem to enjoy Hostel. I even manage a brief lecture on the numerous scientific inaccuracies contained within, and how the blood spatter should be interpreted. Brian limits himself to remarks on the messiness of blow torches.

We move onto Saw after that, and Red Dragon later still. The former, the children seem to find more funny than anything else, but the latter holds both children spellfast. Brian was right: the films he has brought are indeed very informative. I can see Cody and Astor and their small shadows absorbing the virtues of being a neat and polite monster rather than a rampaging beast as they watch, their faces rapt.

It is different than the family nights I am used to and had in mind, late evenings drinking ginger ale and playing Poker and Go Fish with Harry and Doris Morgan and their daughter Deborah, but it is not unenjoyable.

We even talk about things outside the purview of murder. Halfway through an introduction to Jame Gumb and his bucket, we must pause our fourth movie of the day so I can microwave pizzas for lunch. When I return with soda and fresh sustenance, Astor is in the middle of telling Brian about Anthony-the-asshole-at-school and how he came up behind her last week in the hallway and snapped her bra strap and then she kicked him in the testicles.

"You might try carrying a sharpened pencil in your hand at all times," Brian suggests in response. "Puncture wounds are a highly effective way to remove unwanted attention, and you can always claim you were startled."

It goes like this, our short, wondrous day of familial feeling and film-aided bonding.

("Perhaps we can go to a club for dinner," Brian says, hours later when it eventually becomes clear that IHOP leftovers, popcorn, and frozen pizza are not enough to sustain man alone. "Have a dance or two, meet some nice girls, maybe even grab an extra snack?"

"Ew," Astor says, wrinkling her nose.

I clear my throat, and it is only then that Brian seems to recall that we are in the presence of children. Underaged psychopaths, perhaps, but nevertheless underaged.

"Or we could go to McDonalds," Brian amends.)

But all things must pass, and so this does too at last. When the day ends and the sun sets and the moon rises high in the sky, it becomes clear that the day is waning and the children are growing tired, and so--and so.

We go outside together, the two of us, Brian and I. I walk him down to the street where his little red car lies parked. In the darkness his features are very like mine, just as ours must both be like our mother's, and the moonlight glints pale and luminous and singing off his throat.

"Are you sure you won't come with me, brother?" Brian asks, "I have a date to keep, but I'm sure she'd be happy to set you up with a friend. I could even adapt my taste if that's what it takes to get you on a true double date. Go a bit more dangerous, so to speak."

"No," I say. "But thank you."

And I am not sure if I mean _thank you for asking_ or _thank you for today_.

I do not love my brother, just as I do not love Astor and Cody or Deborah. The thought stirs in me as we stand there facing each other. Just as I did not love Harry. It is not something in me. I know this, knew this, have always known this since I was three years old and born into this world for the second time. But if I could, if I were only capable--

If I could.

"Goodnight, brother," I say, and watch until Brian and his Dark Passenger drive their car round the corner toward their midnight rendezvous and I cannot see them any longer. Upstairs, Cody and Astor are fine. All in all, it has been a surprisingly pleasant day spent with family, a grand day in.

But there is still one member of my family left to spend time with, a sharp, sweet sibilant song singing in our veins. Of course, the children must be watched, I cannot leave them lest other predators come hunting, but we can work together within our humble domicile. Our laptop lies on the desk in our study, and with it our careful notes. Here a murder, there a disappearance, everywhere the crimes committed in the greater Miami area that the police can investigate and even solve, but not bring justice for.

Outside our office window, the moon wheels clean and bright and full across the sky. It is a beautiful night for hunting.


End file.
